In Gaulish, the word artos means ‘bear’, and artaios would have been a derivative[1] (meaning something like ‘ursine’). Miranda Green considers Mercury Artaius to have been a bear-god.[3] It is also possible that Artaius is derived from a place name (so that, as an "Artaian Mercury", he would only indirectly have any association with bears. Based on the inscription found at Beaucroissant, Auguste Longnon surmised that the location was once called Artay; there is a similarly named town, Artaix, in Saône-et-Loire.[4]